Today marks the tenth birthday Turn 10 Studios, the team behind the phenomenal Forza Motorsport and Forza Horizon games.
Over the course of a decade the franchise has evolved from a wannabe Gran Turismo to a tour-de-force in its own right. As time goes by and technology jumps forward it’s strange to look back on the games of the past.
Back in the day of the original Xbox the first Forza Motorsport game released and we all shook out heads in disbelief at its graphical fidelity and gameplay, but if you were to pick it up today and give it a whirl you’d probably find yourself distracted by the lack of fancy special effects that have since been employed in future games.
Forza Motorsport released on the OG Xbox back in 2005, just as the world prepared for Microsoft’s second home console. Doesn’t look like much now, but back in the day this was the bees knees.
Forza Motorsport 2 followed a couple of years later on Microsoft’s new hardware, boasting improved graphics, tighter gameplay and an all-round better experience.
Forza Motorsport 3 is where Turn 10 really upped the ante. Released two years after Forza 2, FM3 managed to improve in just about every single way as the developers got to grips with the new hardware.
2011 brought players a new way to experience Forza with Forza Motorsport 4 supporting Microsoft’s Kinect.
With the ever-growing popularity of open-world games, Turn 10 decided to take Forza away from the tarmac and throw it deep into the dirt with Forza Horizon.
Forza Motorsort 5 released as a launch title for Microsoft’s third home console, the Xbox One. It didn’t receive the unanimous praise that we perhaps thought it might, but it was a definite jump for the series and a good base for the next main installment – Forza Motorsport 6.
Forza Horizon 2 released across both the Xbox 360 and Xbox One last year where it received high praise for expanding on the first game’s success and crafting a world worth exploring.
Ten years… crikey. I remember playing the first Forza back on the old Xbox, seems like yesterday. Well, here’s to (hopefully) another ten years of great games from one of Microsoft’s premier studios.